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Democrats in Texas State Legislature Walk Out to End Quorum and Stop Voting on Voting Reform Bill; Interview with Texas Democratic Caucus Chairman Chris Turner on Measures Taken to Stop Voting Reform Bill; Manhunt for Gunmen at Florida Concert in Another Mass Shooting; Texas Democrats Walkout, Blocking Restrictive Voting Bill; Putin and Belarus Leader Mingle on Yacht after Plane "Hijacking." Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 31, 2021 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

NISCHELLE TURNER, HOST, "ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT": We're getting John Cena as Dom Toretto's brother, Vin Diesel's brother in the series. So it's going to be really, really good.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's a fun series, and I just think that Jim Sciutto, how do you even avoid catching one of these movies? It's like he has to try. He really has to try.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's sad. More than anything, it's just sad.

TURNER: What do we do? How do we get him to see -- can someone trick him and say there's going to be, like, a secret briefing?

KEILAR: We have a national security briefing.

TURNER: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Lock him in there.

BERMAN: Nischelle, it's great to see you. Thank you for playing. It's great news that people are going back to the movies.

TURNER: Congratulations, Brianna, on NEW DAY. It's so good to see you.

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BERMAN: NEW DAY continues right now.

I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar. On this NEW DAY Democrats in Texas stage a dramatic walk out, blocking the passage of a restrictive new voting bill. The caucus chair joins us live in just a moment.

Plus, a former U.S. spy tells us why the attack that gave him so- called Havana syndrome is the most terrifying experience of his life.

KEILAR: And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on a collision course with cruise ships over COVID shots. Will it sink his vaccine passport ban?

And Memorial Day for military families in America, why they mark this day very differently than civilians, especially now that America's longest war is ending.

BERMAN: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Monday, May 31st, Memorial Day. Breaking overnight, Texas Democrats going to extremes to block a restrictive Republican voting bill. How? Well, they walked out of the state house before a vote could happen. The measure would have made it much more difficult to vote by mail and would have empowered partisan poll watchers while making it easier to overturn election results.

KEILAR: This fight is far from over. Republican Governor Greg Abbott says he will call a special session of the legislature to start the process all over again as soon as tomorrow. Dianne Gallagher is live for us in Austin, Texas, with this top story. Catch us up here, Dianne.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, look, this was a dramatic walkout happening on the floor just before the midnight deadline for Senate bill 7, that election overhaul bill that would add a slew of new restrictions to the already very restrictive voting laws in Texas. Basically, it deprived the House of having enough votes for them to push it through, effectively killing it for this session.

You mentioned that Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who named this as a top legislative priority before the session even began, has said that he will call a special session to bring it back. But I don't want to undermine just how big this was last night. Now, look, this bill contains a slew of new restrictions and regulations as well as civil and criminal penalties to the whole voting process. For example, it makes it a crime for a public official to send an absentee mail ballot application. It gets rid of overnight and early Sunday morning voting. It also empowers those partisan poll watchers, and it makes it easier to overturn an election by lowering the threshold of proof in those cases. And so this is why Democrats said that they kind of used really what is the nuclear option here, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE MOODY, (D) TEXAS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: The idea that you can break quorum is something that's always out there, and when you're pushed to extreme, you respond to that with extreme. The right to vote is something that we hold very dear and near to our hearts. And for the people that we represent, it means everything. When people come to challenge that, and people come to take that away, we're going to do whatever it takes to maintain the franchise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Now, this was something that had been bubbling there within the Democratic Party. I had been told for days now that they were going to do whatever they could and take every minute up until that midnight deadline. They began talking within the Democratic Caucus early in the night, Brianna and John, and then you slowly started seeing them disappear from the floor. At 10:35 p.m. central, so about an hour-and-a-half before that deadline, the committee chair sent out a text message to every single member of the Democratic Caucus, telling them to get their keys, get out of the gallery, and leave, essentially letting everyone know that this walkout was for real.

[08:05:03]

At this point, lawmakers are saying, they recognize they have a challenge ahead of them. We could see a special session as soon as tomorrow. But for now, they are considering this a victory.

KEILAR: All right, Dianne Gallagher, thank you for the very latest from Austin.

Let's talk now with Texas State Rep Chris Turner. He is the Texas House Democratic Caucus chairman. This was really your idea. Tell us about this. What did you say to Democrats as you told them about this plan to walk out?

CHRIS TURNER, (D) CAUCUS CHAIRMAN, TEXAS HOUSE, ORGANIZED WALKOUT: Good morning, Brianna. Thank you for having me. Look, Democrats in the House and the Senate in Texas have been working all session long to kill these Republican vote suppression measures. And Senate bill 7 was the worst of the worst. And so we were determined to kill this bill in any way we could.

We had a midnight deadline yesterday to pass all bills. Any bills that don't pass by midnight yesterday effectively die. And so we were determined to either kill it by talking on the bill to prevent a vote from coming up, killing it through a procedural maneuver, and as a last resort, leaving the chamber to deny the necessary quorum. We are required to have 100 members on the House floor of a 150 member house.

And so when it became clear Republicans were going to resort to an extreme tactic to shut off debate, even though we were still fighting the bill, they were going to force a vote on it prematurely. That forced our hand, and that's what led to the walkout that you saw about 10:30, 10:40 last night.

KEILAR: So look, certainly a tactical victory, and you did bring a lot of awareness to what is going on in Texas with these voting provisions that Republicans are trying to enact. But long term, the governor says there's going to be a special session. This is going to be revisited, and it would, we would think, pass. So, what do you think about this? This is not the end of this bill.

TURNER: You're right. It's likely not the end. Only the governor can decide what's going to happen next. As you say, he has the sole authority to call a special session, and the sole authority to determine the agenda of a special sessions. So the ball is certainly in the governor's court. What I hope the governor will do is say, you know what, this fever that is ripping the Republican Party across the nation that is founded on the big lie that somehow Donald Trump actually won an election that we all know that he lost and that subsequent Republican efforts to pass these voting measures are all based on the big lie of voter fraud. And some Republican leader in this country is going to have to say, you know what, enough is enough. This is nonsense. This is based on a lie, and we're going to stop talking about it. We're going to stop trying to pass vote suppression measures based upon a lie.

And clearly, the governors in other states have been unable to do that. Maybe Governor Abbott will reach that realization here in Texas. But if he doesn't and he calls a special session to pass voter suppression legislation, we're going to fight him every step of the way. We're going to fight Republicans every step of the way, and we're going to do whatever it takes to continue to stop, slow down, and mitigate this legislation.

KEILAR: Representative, some experts on voting rights and civil rights say that the assault on voting rights going on in many states right now is a five-alarm fire, and they're not sure the government is doing enough federally. Do you think the Biden administration is treating this seriously enough?

TURNER: I think President Biden and Vice President Harris are absolutely treating this very seriously, and I thank them for that. I thank them for their support of our efforts to stop this bill here in Texas. What I would say to our colleagues in Congress is we need Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and HR-1. Myself and other legislative leaders here in Texas a couple months ago sent a letter to our congressional delegation urging them to please pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

We need Texas, Texas voters need protections from the federal government against these efforts to suppress the vote, whether that's through laws like we stopped yesterday or through discriminatory redistricting maps which Texas has a long, shameful history of. We need a strong voting rights act with a good, robust preclearance provision that will protect the voters of Texas and all voters across the country. I urge the Congress to please pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act immediately. We need that here in Texas and across the country.

KEILAR: Sir, thank you for being with us this morning, Texas Representative Chris Turner.

TURNER: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[08:10:02]

BERMAN: So on this first vaccinated Memorial Day, a return to normalcy for some. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will attend the traditional wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington. This holiday weekend looked a lot different, a lot different than last year when much of the country was in lockdown. This year, 37 million people are expected to hit the roads and skies, a pandemic era record for travel. Polo Sandoval live in Coney Island in Brooklyn. Polo, what are you seeing?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, I think I ready last night that there were more seagulls than people. I think that's pretty accurate. But a lot has to do with weather. In this part of the country we have not had a lot of good luck, but today, a better forecast comes renewed promise that people will actually get to fully enjoy the benefits of full re-openings, especially as the post-vaccine confidence begins to build. Just because people didn't necessarily flock to the beaches on yesterday and Saturday doesn't mean that they didn't head up into the air or at least drive to their locations, with AAA estimating that over 30 million people were actually going to be traveling this Memorial Day. And again, that has to do with that confident that people have now, especially as those numbers continue to increase.

Here in New York, for example, vaccination numbers currently sitting at 46 percent of New Yorkers fully vaccinated. That's certain a number that authorities here want to see continue to improve. Another number, though, that is unfortunately, though, dropping, is, obviously, the vaccination rate. And that's why authorities here in New York are deploying these vaccination buses not just to beaches but also some of the area parks that hopefully people will be out enjoying this Memorial Day, hoping that people will actually take advantage of that because the numbers that are also on the right track is test positivity alone. New York officials announcing yesterday, John, one of the lowest we have seen, about 0.71 percent, 55 straight days of declining cases in New York. And that's a number that authorities want to keep on track.

BERMAN: That is wonderful. Wonderful. Great day to go out, get an ice cream, get a vaccine if you haven't had one. Polo Sandoval, thanks so much for being there for us.

Next, the war on voting far from over in Texas. Reaction from a longtime Republican on last night's dramatic walk-out in Austin.

KEILAR: Plus, Russia's Vladimir Putin and his ally from Belarus, are they trolling the west with these images on a yacht?

And cruise control in Florida, will Governor DeSantis get his way on cruise ship COVID shots?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:01]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, police are asking for the public's help in finding the gunman who opened fire at a Florida club early Sunday, killing at least two people, wounding at least 20 more. CNN's Natasha Chen live in Miami-Dade County, Florida with the latest on this -- Natasha.

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so police have now set up a podium behind us at headquarters in preparation for this press conference that's happening in less than two hours.

Hopefully, we can find out some more details about this event that happened, as they say, just after midnight early Sunday morning outside that club, Lounge Venue, where police say a private show or concert was being given. These as the patrons were standing outside in the parking lot of what

is essentially a strip mall when a white Nissan Pathfinder pulled up, three people got out, started using assault rifles and handguns and started shooting at the crowd indiscriminately in what they call a targeted attack.

Of course, more than 20 people were injured, shot at; two people died. In checking around the area hospitals where the injured were taken to, we know that at least two of them are in critical condition still right now.

There is a considerable reward for information leading to the arrest of the people responsible for this. That includes $100,000.00 donation from a Miami businessman, Marcus Lemonis, and also a $25,000.00 donation from A.T.F. Miami.

So, this reward continues to grow, really placing a lot of importance on getting to the root of this violence. Of course, this has already been a violent weekend with another shooting that happened in the City of Miami, so a lot that this community is currently dealing with -- John.

BERMAN: We're waiting for that news conference setting up directly behind you. Natasha, please keep us posted. Natasha Chen in Miami- Dade, thanks so much for being with us.

Overnight, Democrats in Texas walked off the State House floor, leaving the Republican majority without the quorum needed to approve a restrictive new voting bill, at least for now.

Joining us now is former Republican Congressman Francis Rooney. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us this morning. I guess, I want two takes here. One on what happened in Texas overnight, your immediate take on that. But also, the bigger picture here of where this fits in the larger trend of Republican-led state governments passing new restrictive voting measures.

FRANCIS ROONEY (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, John, thank you for having me on.

I think this is a reflection of that Texas is just as dysfunctional as our Federal Congress is when it comes to trying to accomplish something that is fair and balanced. There are aspects of this Texas bill which to me are unduly restrictive of access, like limiting hours and requiring a Social Security number or partisan poll watchers.

But then, there are some other aspects of it like having to ask for an absentee ballot or a mail-in ballot, I think are probably good. That works quite well in Florida where you have to request, you get a card. You have to request a mail-in ballot and put your address on there, and they'll send you one, and all they do is just match your signature, and they have an obligation that if the signature is illegible or something, they are supposed to track you down to make sure they can resolve it to preserve your access to the vote.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Can I ask you, why do you think we're seeing in state after state Republicans instead of trying to craft a message that will appeal to more voters, instead, they're trying to knock voters out of the system in the most undemocratic of ways?

ROONEY: Yes. I think that this Trump fealty plays into that some, and as the Representative said previously, I don't think it's very constructive to tie voting integrity provisions to Trump's big lie.

I think if you're going to pass things that preserve integrity of the voting process, they should be based -- stand on their own substance, not on something to do with the big lie.

BERMAN: So, congressman, there are former Secretaries of Homeland Security, bipartisan, a bipartisan group that joined together to express their dismay at Senate Republicans who blocked the bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection.

[08:25:10]

BERMAN: They say, "The decision not to seek the truth about what happened during an insurrection against the U.S. government, one of the most dangerous and violent attacks on our democracy in modern memory is deeply alarming." Your thoughts on that?

ROONEY: I agree with them a hundred percent. If anything should call for a bipartisan inquiry, you would think it would be this. I mean, the obvious analogy is 9/11, and I think American people would like to put to rest on one side and the other how much premeditation and planning went into this and how much of it was a bunch of spontaneous lunacy.

There was an awful lot of gear that was transported down there. Someone had to think it through to get it all down there. I'd like to see a bipartisan commission to explore all that.

KEILAR: So, there is not going to be that, so it's looking more and more like it will be a House Select Committee, which obviously Democrats would lead. Is there a way for them to do that that will be more broadly seen as nonpartisan by, you know, not just Democrats, but maybe even some Republicans?

ROONEY: Well, I think Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer are very smart and experienced legislators. If anybody can craft a way to put the best light on a nonpartisan or a non-bipartisan situation, I think it would be them and it would be good to do exactly that.

To go the extra mile, to make it as fair and theoretically open to bipartisanship as possible, to therefore create the greatest confidence in whatever data is uncovered.

BERMAN: But, Congressman, if they asked John Katko, the Republican Congressman who crafted the bill to co-chair the committee or be a big part of it, do you think he would say yes?

ROONEY: I would hope he would. I mean, John was one of the authors of the provision in the first place, and he is a pretty reasonable person and I am sure he is just as upset about what happened on the 6th of January as any other American.

KEILAR: Yes, it would go a long way and Americans deserve answers. They deserve answers in the investigations that are already under way, but also in one by Congress, if not a commission.

Former Congressman Francis Rooney, thank you.

ROONEY: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Up next, Vladimir Putin, buddy-buddy on a boat trip with his counterpart from Belarus. What message does that send to the west?

BERMAN: Also, wearing white before Memorial Day.

Plus, the former U.S. spy who says he suffered a mysterious attack while on assignment in Moscow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:26:42]

KEILAR: New pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin on his yacht, and no coincidence, welcoming Belarus' leader, Alexander Lukashenko aboard. The two leaders looking very friendly as they shared drinks and a few laughs, and according to the Kremlin, the two discussed trade, economic cooperation and the pandemic, and all of this happened one day after a more formal meeting between the two.

Joining us now, CNN anchor and national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. Okay, Jim, so this is a very interesting moment here, because obviously, this is the Belarusian leader behind the -- I guess, you would say, interception of an airplane to pull a dissident off a plane.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: A hijacking.

KEILAR: A hijacking. What does this mean, this sort of bromance troll-a-thon that we see here put out very publicly?

SCIUTTO: This is deliberate. This is a partnership between two undemocratic leaders that has consequences both for their countries. You know, elections don't mean much in Russia or in Belarus. We saw Belarus just overturn the results of an election, and despite widespread peaceful protest, but it also has consequences for broader Europe right here, because you have two leaders who are willing to challenge European standards. Right?

I mean, Putin has attempted assassinations on British soil. You know, the Skripal poisonings using a very powerful nerve agent. Lukashenko just took a European flight out of the air, forced it down with a fighter jet to take a democratic leader off of it.

So they're challenging not just democratic norms in their own country, where they just frankly don't exist, but the rule of law outside their country. And the sad fact is that we, the West, hasn't figured out an answer for that yet, because what happens in these cases and with cyberattacks, et cetera, is we sanction them, individuals, entities, et cetera, but the attacks go on.

KEILAR: Yes, it seems to keep going on and on and on, right? Okay, let's turn to Israel now, because opposition leaders announce they have the votes to form a government. If current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot convince lawmakers to defect, if he can't sort of tie things up procedurally here, he is actually going to be removed from power after years and years.

If that happened, how is that going to impact relations with the U.S.?

SCIUTTO: So, first of all, with the caveat, right, never count Netanyahu out until he is out, right?

KEILAR: That's true.

SCIUTTO: He has got a couple of days to do this, but the forces do seem to be aligned against him, which is a remarkable coalition, right, because you have the moderate centrists in this government. You have Naftali Bennett who is as far-right wing as Netanyahu is. I mean, he led the settlers' movement, right? He is not interested in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

But what unites them, as well as an Arab Party that needs to be part of this, too, is they are ready for this to be the end of the Netanyahu era there. He has been in power since 1999 and they see him and Bennett who is an acolyte of him says, you know, he is more about his own power than about the country at this point.

Big picture though in terms of relationship with the United States, given his power in this coalition and the fact he would be the first Prime Minister, you don't see major changes in the relationship with the U.S., certainly with the peace process. They are going to focus on issues like COVID and the economy and so on.

So a Biden administration will have many of the same challenges it had with Netanyahu, right? It is that, you don't -- you know, if Biden wants to move this more back to the previous status quo as the U.S. as a kind of honest broker between the two sides, he is going to have just as many challenges with Bennett as he had arguably with Netanyahu.

[08:30:12]